'Your computer has a virus' cold call con artists on the rise: Microsoft

[steve2470]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/23/tech_support_scams_on_the_rise/

Microsoft has released stats showing that tech support scams are on the increase, with 153,000 complaints received and 15 per cent of complainants losing cold, hard cash.

For those who have been fortunate enough not to be subject to one, a tech support scam is typically where a ne'er-do-well will call up a user, usually claiming to be from Microsoft, and talk the victim through a number of steps that will result in something scary happening on the user’s screen and a fee being paid to resolve the ‘problem’.

Microsoft has published statistics from its own customer services team showing complaints up 24 per cent on 2016’s figures, with users who actually paid up losing between $200 and $400.

Among the people from 183 countries that ran to Microsoft with complaints was one unfortunate Dutch user that lost €89,000 after a scammer was able to empty their bank accounts.

*end of excerpt*

Needless to say, do not EVER engage with anyone from "Microsoft" (unless you want to troll them hard). The only exception to this is if you know, for a fact 100%, you are actually talking to someone from Microsoft because you are PAYING them for a support call. It used to be $35 per support incident but I'm sure that has gone up now. To even get to that service, I think you must go here first:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/contact/virtual-agent/?flowId=smc-home-hero&referrer=support.microsoft.com

You jump through all the virtual hoops there and you can either wait for a phone call or schedule one.

eta:

Am I entitled to no-charge support when I purchase a full packaged product?

Microsoft no-charge support (also known ‘warranty’ support) applies to full packaged products targeted at the home user as well as desktop applications (such as Microsoft Office), desktop operating systems (such as Microsoft Windows) and developer tools (including Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and MSDN Subscriptions). You may be eligible for assisted support in the form of two telephone or online support incidents at no charge.

With Microsoft Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010 you may be eligible to 90-day no-charge assisted support. This no-charge support begins from the date you activate the product.

To check your entitlement, telephone your local support centre, or submit your technical support incident online via the Microsoft Support Site. You can also visit the Support Website for information about Microsoft support offerings and self-help support resources.

These resources are designed to carry the minimum level of jargon.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/gp/nochargefaq/en-gb

[Lint Head]

1. One made the mistake of leaving their phone number to call back.

Well after calling them more than a dozen times and not only calling them effing criminals and talking about how their mother was my girlfriend they finally disabled the phone number. I hope they call me back so I can waste their time so they're not ripping off other people.

[steve2470]

2. Tech support scammers mess with hacker's mother, so he retaliated with ransomware

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/17/tech_support_scam_takedown/

Vengeful security boffin Ivan Kwiatkowski has infected the computer of an Indian tech support scammer with the Locky ransomware.

Kwiatkowski inflicted the virus on the scammers after they attempted to fleece his parents.

The retaliatory strike was easy for the French malware analyst; during a phone call with the scammers he sent through what he claimed was an image of his credit card which, when opened by the scammer, unleashed the Locky ransomware.

While his ability to watch the bloodbath ended with the scammer hanging up, it is likely that Locky, rated the world's most prolific email-borne threat, ripped through the scammer's machine encrypting large swathes of files and possibly travelling through the network to encrypt other machines and connected local and cloud drives.

[uppityperson]

4. !

[steve2470]

3. A trip to India: Hunting down a criminal call center

https://media.ccc.de/v/SHA2017-233-a_trip_to_india

We will take you behind the scenes of a call center that placed over 5 million calls to Dutch phone numbers and employed around 60 people. We will show how these call centers operate and how they convince their victims to pay for their ‘services’. You will see the social engineering techniques that are used by the scammers. We will also show that we could easily obtain the list of 5 million potential victims from the call center and how we eventually were able to track down the owner of the call center.

video at link

[Sunlei]

5. Verizon dumped thousands of accounts to Frontier. dumped old @verizon emails to AOL. frauded me!

Called Frontier tech support- couldn't access the @Verizon email on AOL like Verizon said customers they dumped on Frontier should be able to.

Frontier tech support directly connected me to some remote access "criminal". I let him paw through an old PC just to see what the scam was, "he tried to as he said, "access the @Verizon email for me". watched as he tried to outload bank info, password files. (old PC nothing of value) Tried to upsell some yearly package for AOL email account.

still don't have our old @Verizon email- Verizon 'promised' would be on aol free to access. Fuck you Verizon!

fuck you Frontier tech. support, you hire criminals!